An Arizona judge has declined to grant a divorce to a female-to-male transsexual man, Thomas Beatie, and his wife stating that “there wasn’t enough evidence proving Beatie was a man at the time of the wedding.” Because there was no specification as to whether Beatie was a man or a woman when the marriage occurred, the judge ruled it was a same-sex marriage, which means “that the state of Arizona doesn’t recognize it. And if the state doesn’t recognize the marriage, it can’t grant a divorce.”
Read the full article here.
“The decision is compelled by the fact that the parties failed to prove that (Thomas Beatie) was a transsexual male when they were issued their marriage license.”
News-freaking-flash – Beatie’s been a man his whole flipping life. Just because the state didn’t recognize it until after Beatie jumped through a bunch of hoops, doesn’t mean he wasn’t always a man.
Tell me, cis people who have gotten divorced….were you asked to provide evidence you “qualify” for the gender you identified as when you got married? No? Exactly.
Is this a case that, even if the judge wanted to she/he couldn’t overrule some law? Or is he/she just trying to use a law to be an ass?
Basically the judge is being an ass…an ill informed ass at that. Legally, even, Beatie’s gender was recognized as a man at the time he was married. The judge has just decided that he doesn’t recognize that because Beatie still had female reproductive organs. He’s not stuck following some law…he’s actively ignoring the law that allows a trans* person to be legally recognized as the gender they identify as.
The one positive is that it looks like the judge did manage to sort out custody of the kids. So at least that’s not still up in the air. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-21978341
wtf, doesn’t that just mean it’s already voided?